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I’m sure there’s something big happening today. Something at once terrifying and momentous that could plunge the world into chaos over the next four years…..
Something about a game of Top Trumps, is it?
No. My mind seems to be blocking it out for some reason.
Perhaps it’s because there are far more pressing concerns at hand, for this week, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook have all been up to their usual tricks, unleashing new updates to their platforms into the wild and changing the way we do our jobs yet again.
Let’s take a look…
Instagram Announces Insights and Ads for Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories have only been on the scene since August, but, in world where our favourite apps exist in a perpetual state of beta, the updates have been coming thick and fast ever since the feature’s launch.
And the focus seems to be paying off – Instagram have recently announced that Stories now boast more than 150 million daily users. That’s impressive. What’s more, with 70% of the entire Instagram user-base following a business account on the platform, Instagram says that “one-third of the most viewed stories are from businesses.”
Often marketed as a user-feature, this statistic goes to show that innovative marketers like your good selves are keeping abreast of the latest offerings and exploiting them to your advantage. Nice one.
And now we are gifted with two brand new updates that will help us get even more out of Instagram Stories. First up, Stories Insights.
From the Instagram blog:
“In the coming weeks, Instagram Business Tools will now include insights on stories. For businesses converted to a business profile, you’ll be able to see the reach, impressions, replies and exits for each individual story within Business Tools. By viewing these insights, you can learn how to create more relevant content that resonates with your audience.”
(Image source: blog.business.instagram.com)
Pretty cool, huh? As marketers, we love analytics, don’t we – without them, optimisation would be all but impossible, so I for one am pleased with this update. Better stories will make for better leads which will make for better conversion rates from this channel. Nice one.
The second update coming our way is the ability to start running full-screen ads in Instagram Stories. TechCrunch has uploaded a video to YouTube showing us all “What Instagram Stories Ads Look Like”. Check it out…
Currently still in the testing phase, it’s as yet unclear when we’ll all get a chance to start dabbling with this new feature. But here’s what Instagram says we’ve got to look forward to:
“Ads in stories will let you use targeting, reach and measurement capabilities that make your ads personally relevant to the people you want to reach—which is unmatched in a stories experience today.
“To unveil this first-ever, full screen ad to Instagram Stories, and create the most impact for businesses and Instagrammers alike, we’ll test with 30+ clients around the world, including: Capital One, Buick, Maybelline New York, Nike, Yoox, Netflix, and Qantas. With roughly 70% of watched stories being sound-on, this immersive, full screen nature creates an intimacy with people like never before.”
Sounds amazing – really looking forward to this one.
End of the Twitter Dashboard App
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And the Twitter Dashboard app mortality.
I’m beginning to think that there is enough material to fill a whole PhD thesis on the subject of classical poets foretelling the slow but sure demise of Twitter-associated apps and features.
You will recall that we first brought this spooky phenomenon to light back in September when we noticed that Auden’s 1938 poem ‘Funeral Blues’ had in fact been written to portend Twitter eventually putting an end to its 140-character limit some 68 years later. Then, just six weeks after this, it suddenly dawned on us that Dylan Thomas’s famous villanelle ‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’ from 1947 had been warning us about the death of Vine all along.
And now Emily Dickenson’s at it. I must say that Dickinson’s ‘Because I Could Not Stop for Death’ displays the greatest foresight of them all. First published in 1890, it’s nothing short of a wonder that such an accurate prediction could have been made.
But yes, long story short – the Twitter Dashboard will be no more as from February 3rd 2017.
Twitter Dashboard will be closing down on February 3rd. 1/5
— Twitter Dashboard (@dashboardapp) 10 January 2017
In a series of tweets, Twitter Dashboard has told the Twitterverse that “In the future, we hope to bring the best features from Dashboard to the broader Twitter community”, and that “All your scheduled Tweets will still be posted as scheduled and can be seen/updated from @tweetdeck”.
Having only launched this tool in June, it certainly makes me wonder if the grand finale will be the death of Twitter itself. Perhaps I’ll start digging through the Shakespeare canon to see if there are any clues.
Facebook Experiments with Enhanced Ad Retargeting
Finally, a scoop from Adweek – Facebook is updating its ad retargeting features to enable advertisers to deliver more ads to Facebook users based on their web browsing behaviour.
Retargeting is a powerful tactic. In fact, we covered the very subject only a few weeks ago, and so I refer you to our post ‘Facebook Custom Audiences: How to Retarget Your Facebook Leads’ for the low-down on how the feature works.
This update, however, brings even more flexibility to the offering.
“For example,” Adweek blogger Lauren Johnson explains, “someone who has been looking for red dresses across multiple retailers and also likes Facebook posts and pages about dresses could automatically be served an ad for a red dress. In the past, advertisers have only been able to single out folks who specifically looked at a product on their website or mobile app.”
This is a big update for Facebook marketers. The power of retargeting is not to be underestimated. The ability to serve up a highly-tailored advertisement to a consumer on Facebook based on the exact products that they have already been thinking about purchasing is a conversion-driving wonder. Now, with this new update, the process has been made even simpler for advertisers.
I’m going to give the last word to Maz Sharafi, director of product marketing at Facebook, on this one, as he breaks down just how process-simplifying dynamic ads are set to become:
“It automates the process of who it can show products to. It takes out a lot of the trial and error and complexity of being able to do this in a manual way. For example, to sell 1,000 products you have to create almost 1,000 different ads to reach those products to different people. With dynamic ads, you’re effectively creating one ad.”
That’s it! Provided there’s no apocalypse between now and then, I’ll see you all next week!


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If you’re an entrepreneur thinking about building tools for drones, there may never have been a better time than now.
Today, the drone operating system company Airware announced it launched a new venture fund aimed at investing in early-stage startups that are “developing technologies critical to scaling the use of drones across a variety of commercial applications.”
Known as the Commercial Drone Fund, Airware said it will make between $250,000 and $1 million available to early-stage companies focusing on five areas: “sensor hardware, software applications, cloud-based aerial data analysis tools, drone-based services, and complete solutions for specific industries.”
Until today there had never been a drone-specific fund like this, but this morning, DJI — the world’s largest maker of consumer drones — announced that it had teamed with Accel Partners on SkyFund. That initiative will make at least $10 million available to early-stage companies focused on developing tools for the DJI platform. Those investments would start at $250,000 and potentially go higher.
Airware, which builds control system software for a variety of commercial drones, and which is aimed largely at the enterprise market, will run its fund autonomously. The company’s CEO, Jonathan Downey, will serve as the fund’s general partner.

domain: news


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Amazon is determined to maintain its lead over rivals in the cloud computing arena. Lately, the company’s cloud computing division Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced that it will be introducing a new pricing scheme by October and plans to charge clients by the second, a move seen to be financially favorable for its cloud customers.
In a recent blog post, AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr announced that the company would be changing its billing scheme to be more reflective of clients’ actual usage. Starting October 2, 2017, AWS will implement per-second billing for its EC2 and EBS services.
— Jeff Barr ☁ (@jeffbarr) September 18, 2017
The billing change will be applicable to all AWS regions running Linux instances. However, instances running on Microsoft Windows as well as Linux distributions with a separate hourly charge will not be affected by the new scheme.
AWS expects that the move will be beneficial to many of its EC2 clients. However, Barr challenged companies to be more creative to take full advantage of the savings opportunities presented by the billing change.
“While this will result in a price reduction for many workloads (and you know we love price reductions), I don’t think that’s the most important aspect of this change,” Barr explained. “I believe that this change will inspire you to innovate and to think about your compute-bound problems in new ways. How can you use it to improve your support for continuous integration?”
With introduction of per second billing for EC2 and EBS, Amazon Web Services is pushing the envelope https://t.co/TkUZqtZbiW
— socialmysite (@socialmysite) September 21, 2017
Analysts are divided on what AWS’ decision to introduce per-second billing could mean to the cloud computing industry as a whole. For instance, there are speculations that it could become an industry-wide trend as it could trigger similar offerings by other players.
Cloudreach Europe head Chris Bunch expects it to become the industry norm in the future. “Longer term the world will get used to per-millisecond billing anyway with serverless architectures, so it’s good to see this happening now, said Bunch. “I would expect other cloud companies to follow this trend.”
However, not everyone believes the hype as some analysts voiced that it could just be a PR stunt. “It’s a PR stunt isn’t it?” quipped UKFast CEO Lawrence Jones. “It’s trying to make something that’s very expensive sound very, very cheap.”
Amazon first introduced the pay-as-you-go model in cloud computing usage when it launched EC2 in 2006. Back then, AWS charged clients on a per hour basis, a pricing scheme that was deemed revolutionary at that time.
However, its rivals challenged AWS dominance by offering a more competitive pricing structure. Google, for one, introduced a more accurate per-minute billing scheme deemed more reflective of actual usage.
[Featured Image TechRepublic]


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Nikon India, the company's wholly-owned arm which today announced top management changes with the appointment of Sajjan Kumar as its new Managing Director, is targeting a turnover of Rs 1,200 crore in the current fiscal.
Japanese imaging major Nikon has said it expects India to be among its top five markets globally in the next 3-4 years and aims to retain lead in the DSLR segment here.
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While the Future Group said any such proposal by any company is always a subject matter of feasibility studies and the need for requisite consents, said the Future Group company in the filing.
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The Horton Farmers Market will be making its return Mothers Day weekend. The Market, which features local, fresh produce from ara farmers an local businesses is ready for another busy season. Market Manager, Shawn Devree says she wants the market to be tourist spot in the CIty.
Devree added that its's not a flea market and is a producer only market which makes it very unique in our area. When the market opens, it will run every Saturday from 8 am til noon. For more information visit: www horton farmers market.ca


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The final expansion for Borderland 3’s season pass has been released, and right now, fans don’t really know what to expect for the game’s future updates. Until Gearbox releases more information about the title’s future content, players can distract themselves for now by re-experiencing Borderland 3’s Bloody Harvest event this month.
Gearbox made the announcement on Twitter, and even though it didn’t provide a concrete launch date for the Halloween-themed event, the tweet did vaguely say that the event will take place “next week.”
The tweet also doesn’t provide a lot of information, except for confirming that Captain Haunt and the Rakk-O-Lantern enemies will be brought back into the game once more. Fans will surely jump at the chance to play Bloody Harvest again, especially those who missed out on the event the first time and weren’t able to get the exclusive powerful grenade.
The post doesn’t say anything about new event content as well. However, it does confirm that more information is on the way as Gearbox asks fans to “stay tuned for more.” As such, we’re holding on to the possibility that the developers will be announcing new skins and loot for this event.
Doing so would definitely be a good move for Gearbox, especially since fans have been disappointed in the recent offerings of Borderlands 3 and its DLC packs, so much so that players have been wondering if the season pass was even worth it.
It’s also possible that Gearbox won’t make any changes to the Bloody Harvest event, providing the same exact features and prizes that the original run had. Dedicated fans have pretty much already found everything there is to find within Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck.
For instance, they have already discovered the SpongeBob Easter eggs, as well as found four of the best DLC legendaries. As such, fans are looking forward to new Borderlands 3 content.
It would definitely be interesting to see when Gearbox will be releasing new content that’s meatier than a seasonal event again. In line with that, it has been confirmed that the next big update for the title will be released some time this year.
This upcoming update is said to focus on providing a skill tree to every Borderlands 3 vault hunter. So, we’re intrigued to see what Gearbox will do for the meantime in order to fill the time between that big update and the Halloween event.
Although there’s still a lot of room for potential abilities like Amara’s fourth skill tree, for example, the release could be impacted negatively if there are no new quests to complete or new loot to hunt down and obtain.
Players still have a bunch of unanswered concerns about the title’s story as well as the developer’s future plans. We can only hope that after the Bloody Harvest event ends once more, Gearbox will reveal more details about what they have planned for the future of Borderlands 3.
For those players who haven’t finished the Krieg DLC just yet, we recommend that you keep a lookout for a secret room inside Vaulthalla.
Although, you should catch up on the game’s post-launch content as soon as possible since the Halloween event is fast approaching and it might have a bunch of new content.


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Downtown Raleigh Parking Lot To Get New Look
Posted March 21, 2006 6:30 a.m. EST
RALEIGH, N.C. — A county-owned parking lot in downtown Raleigh will get a new look.
Wake commissioners are moving forward with a public private partnership at the corner of Davie and McDowell streets.
A new deck will be built to replace the parking garage that will be lost to accommodate a new courthouse.
The deck will include condos and more than 8,000 square feet of retail space.


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Selected Second Quarter Highlights
Net sales increased 31.2 percent to a record $131.2 million.
Sunglass sales increased 22.3 percent.
New category sales from footwear, apparel, prescription eyewear and watch products grew 103.9 percent.
International net sales grew 54.0 percent; U.S. net sales increased 16.4 percent.
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif.–Oakley, Inc. (NYSE:OO) today announced record financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2001. Net income for the quarter totaled a record $23.6 million, or $0.34 per diluted share, a 27.6 percent increase over net income of $18.5 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, in last year’s second quarter.Net sales for the quarter totaled $131.2 million, also a record and 31.2 percent above the $100.0 million achieved in the second quarter of 2000. International net sales increased 54.0 percent to $60.6 million and U.S. net sales increased 16.4 percent to $70.6 million, compared with $39.3 million and $60.7 million, respectively, in last year’s second quarter.”The Oakley brand is a rare blend of technical substance, sport, lifestyle and luxury,” said Oakley Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jim Jannard. “As strong as this quarter was, we still believe we are only beginning to realize the ultimate potential of the six principal product categories in which we compete.”
Oakley Chief Operating Officer Link Newcomb commented, “Oakley’s outstanding second quarter results were led by our international markets, which generated two-thirds of our year-over-year growth. Despite a strong U.S. dollar, Europe grew 48.4 percent and represented more that half of our international sales. The region’s growth reflects the positive results of our efforts over the past year to reorganize and refocus our sales and marketing teams around specific key country markets. Sales in Japan and the rest of Asia were also very strong during the quarter, up 88.1 percent, as our brand continues to experience increasing demand in these markets across all categories.”
“Sales in our new product categories more than doubled to $21.9 million from $10.8 million in last year’s second quarter, reflecting the continued success of our product diversification strategy,” Newcomb continued. “Our sunglass business continued to grow at a very healthy 22.3 percent rate, much better than expectations again this quarter, with unit growth increasing 12.8 percent and the average selling price increasing 8.4 percent, fueled once again by strong sales of our technology-leading styles. We were also pleased by the continued strong performance of our prescription business which benefited from the successful establishment of our on-site lens finishing laboratory.”
“Oakley’s continued momentum is reflected in the June 30, 2001 backlog of approximately $52.4 million, a 25.4 percent increase over $41.8 million one year ago,” Newcomb continued. “Included in this growth is a 141.5 percent increase in pre-booked fall footwear and apparel products, partially offset by reduced X-Metal eyewear backorders as the company’s X-Metal production capacity has been expanded to better meet demand.”
Newcomb concluded, “With the momentum demonstrated in the second quarter, we now expect full year 2001 earnings per share to be $0.99, a 35.6 percent increase over 2000, including a one-time benefit of $0.07 per share from a lower tax rate in 2001, explained below.”
Second Quarter Financial AnalysisOakley’s international net sales increased 54.0 percent (64.3 percent on a constant dollar basis) to a record $60.6 million, a thirteenth consecutive quarterly record, and represented 46.2 percent of total sales in the quarter. Compared to the same period last year, net sales growth was strong in all major markets, with the highest increases in Europe, Japan and the rest of Asia and Latin America.
Second quarter U.S. net sales increased 16.4 percent to $70.6 million, fueled primarily by a 26.4 percent increase in sales to the company’s diverse base of specialty retail accounts, partially offset by sales to Sunglass Hut, the company’s largest sunglass customer, which were equal to last year’s second-quarter, in line with expectations. U.S. net sales to Sunglass Hut increased 12.4 percent through the first half of 2001.
Worldwide sales of sunglasses grew 22.3 percent in the second quarter with several sunglass styles contributing significantly to the growth. Sales of the Square Wire(R) 2.0 and the Twenty(TM) showed substantial increases, while combined sales of the X-Metal(R) family increased 80.0 percent. Sales of prescription products were the biggest contributor to new category sales, more than doubling over the prior year, benefiting from the successful launch in spring 2001 of the company’s line of exclusive ophthalmic frames.
Gross margins in the quarter were 64.2 percent, compared with 66.7 percent in last year’s second quarter, due to greater contribution from the company’s new footwear and apparel products which carry lower gross margins than sunglass products, and a shift in the mix of sunglass sales toward more complex, multi-layered lens products with higher production costs.
Operating expenses were 37.7 percent of sales, compared with 37.6 percent in the prior year as leverage in selling and general and administrative expenses was offset by higher design and shipping costs associated with the new categories. Selling expenses reflect increased advertising as part of the company’s strategic effort to increase brand awareness and drive demand. General and administrative expenses increased primarily due to the increased personnel and infrastructure necessary to support the growth in business. Operating income increased 19.1 percent, to $34.7 million compared with $29.2 million in last year’s second quarter. As a result of the lower gross margins, operating margins for the quarter were 26.5 percent of sales compared with 29.2 percent in the prior year period.
The company’s consolidated inventory totaled $78.4 million at June 30, 2001, compared with $74.2 million at March 31, 2001 and $51.6 million at June 30, 2000. This inventory supports the 41.7 percent growth in trailing-12-month sales as well as the growth in international markets, pre-booked fall season products and the company’s expanded sunglass offerings. To support growth in the Japanese market, the company established earlier this year a new distribution center in Japan which accounted for a substantial portion of the sequential inventory increase.
Tax Rate for 2001
As a result of a one-time tax benefit associated with the company’s foreign operations, the effective tax rate for the second quarter was 30 percent, down from 35 percent for the previous year. The company expects the full year 2001 tax rate to be 30 percent.
Stock Repurchase ProgramOn December 11, 2000, the company’s board of directors authorized a $20 million stock repurchase program to occur from time to time as market conditions warrant, of which $7.5 million is still available for purchase. In the second quarter 2001, the company did not repurchase any additional shares. Under this plan and a previous authorization of $20 million in December 1999, which was completed in May 2000, the company has repurchased 3,102,000 shares for $32.5 million, at an average price of $10.48 per share.


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New rules from Ofcom require broadband, mobile phone and pay TV providers to notify residential and business customers when their deals are drawing to a close
Broadband, pay TV and mobile phone providers must notify customers when their contract is ending under new rules from Ofcom coming into force today.
The communications regulator announced the rule change in May last year, giving providers eight months to prepare. It followed on from proposals first floated by Ofcom in July 2018. The organisation suggested that the stipulation would help nudge customers into shopping around to get the best deal, rather than absent-mindedly sticking with a provider on a highly priced, default deal.
Providers have been content to allow loyal customers to pay a great deal more than new subscribers
"We want customers to be able to take advantage of the wide choice of services available and shop around with confidence, so that they can get the best deals for their needs. To help customers to do this, we are imposing new requirements on providers to send important information to their customers when their contracts are coming to an end and on a regular basis after that," the organisation stated in May last year [PDF] when it announced the change.
Under the new rules, broadband, mobile, home phone and pay TV companies must notify both residential and business customers when their minimum contract period is coming to an end.
Residential customers must receive a notification between 10 and 40 days before the end of their contract, including the date the minimum contract period ends, the services provided and the price paid. The notice must also include any variations to the service and the new price they can expect to pay when the contract ends. It must also tell customers about the best new tariffs available from their provider, which they can switch to.
Regularly switching will let you take advantage of the latest offers, and perhaps get you a faster connection
Furthermore, providers are required to inform customers about special deals available to new subscribers, so they can see whether they might benefit from switching provider. Out-of-contract customers must be given "best tariff information" by their provider at least once a year.
"Business customers will also receive a notification to inform them of the end of their minimum contract period and how they may terminate the contract," according to Ofcom, which has been pushing for years to improve communications contracts for businesses, as well as consumers.
Matt Powell, editor at Broadband Genie, said that even customers who didn't want to switch should play hard ball with their provider when cut-price contracts draw to a close.
"Until now, providers have been content to allow loyal customers to pay a great deal more than new subscribers. Many broadband deals are sold with discounts for the initial contract term, and although these are often good value for the first 12 or 18 months the cost after the discount ends can be substantially higher," said Powell.
He continued: "Regularly switching will let you take advantage of the latest offers, and perhaps get you a faster connection. And if you don't want to switch you should always negotiate with the provider at the end of your contract term to see if a better deal is available."


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A big piece of news that crossed my desk recently is that the beverage maker Sunny Delight, makers of Sunny D, Veryfine Juices and several other brands, achieved zero waste to landfill from its 6 plants in the US recently.
They started this quest in 2009, with a goal of reaching zero waste by 2013, and hit it three years ahead of schedule. As recently as 2007, 36% of waste in plants went to landfills.
According to the company's sustainability report, in the first six months of working toward the goal, it was able to change waste from an expense to a revenue stream by sorting trash and, when possible, recycling it.
In addition to waste reduction, the company has been able to cut energy use by 8% and water use by 9% — dropping carbon emissions by 17% in the process and reducing operating expenses.
As they work on their own processes the company is also now turning to its supply chain to help reduce total emissions and waste.


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Yuletide party hosts just love to serve creamy, nutmeggy egg nog and Champagne or other sparkling wines. What about beer? The major brewers offer seasonal beers that can add spice to your table. To help choose among them, we assembled a group of experienced Chicago drinkers -- not hard to find -- for a blind taste test.
Pumpkin brews make a nice complement to many seasonal dishes. The cinnamon aroma of Michelob (BUD) Pumpkin Spice Ale evokes winter festivities. You can also buy the brew in a sampler pack with Michelob Marzen and Pale Ale, good alternatives for revelers who find the spicy, flavored beers to be "overpowering." Blue Moon Pumpkin Ale, which smelled of canned pumpkin, got a thumbs-down from the group.
The Samuel Adams Winter Classics Pack -- with six varieties of beer -- featured a number of crowd pleasers. Sam's Holiday Porter had a pleasing toffee flavor that one tester said was "like Guinness, but better." It had a similar aroma to the Irish stout but wasn't nearly as heavy. My favorite was Sam's Cranberry Lambic, even though hard-core beer drinkers turned up their noses at the touch of sweetness that gave it an almost fruity flavor.
By far the biggest winner was Celebrate by Michelob, a brew that's aged in bourbon-barrel oak. One tester called it "a dessert and beer in one." Another said it "smells like frosting" with vanilla and caramel flavors. Indeed, an Anheuser-Busch brewmaster says it goes well with chocolate desserts. Now, if only there were a beer that made fruitcake taste better.
Reports of the demise of the "January effect" may have been greatly exaggerated. Academic researchers discovered 30 years ago that stocks typically go up in January. Subsequent research was less definitive, and concerns grew that so many investors were trying to profit from the anomaly that it might no longer hold true. So University of Kansas Business School professors Mark Haug and Mark Hirschey crunched data (going back to 1802 for large-cap stocks) to determine whether the effect is real or imagined. In a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of the Financial Analysts Journal, they found large caps showed a somewhat elevated performance in January -- about a half a percentage point better than in other months.
But small-cap stocks logged an average monthly gain of 6.1% in January (since 1927 when the data begin) -- far better than the 0.9% average for the other 11 months. And they have gone up in January 82% of the time, says Hirschey. A way to make the January play is to buy iShares S&P Smallcap 600 Index and Vanguard Small Cap VIPERS, both exchange-traded funds.
Who's having a big 2006 birthday besides baby boomers turning 60? Ben Franklin: It's his 300th. In honor of the statesman, founding father, and inventor (bifocals, swim flippers), "Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World" opens at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center on Dec. 15. The exhibit features original copies of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution signed by Franklin as well as over 250 artifacts (benfranklin300.org). The show will travel to St. Louis, Houston, Denver, and Atlanta before ending in Paris in 2008.


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The government of Thailand has expressed optimism to receive up to 30 million tourists this year as the country’s budding tourism sector experiences a post-COVID boost.
Government spokesperson Anucha Burapachaisri said during a briefing on Tuesday that Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha had directed concerned agencies in the tourism sector to ease the travel experience for visitors and ensure the safety of all tourists.
The Thai government had initially predicted the number of tourists who will visit Thailand this year to be 20 million, and later, 28 million.
“Most recently, the prime minister is confident that tourist numbers will exceed 30 million,” Burapachaisri said.
This latest projection comes just days after China relaxed restrictions and opened its borders to welcome tourists from Asia and the world.
In 2022, Thailand rose above its tourism target, welcoming about 11-15 million foreign visitors. This figure was a sharp growth from 2021 when about 428,000 tourists visited the country amid global COVID restrictions and stringent travel bans.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Thailand received a record 40 million foreign tourists in 2019, whose total tourist spending amounted to 1.91 trillion baht ($56.78 billion)—significantly contributing to the country’s economy.
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What is your outlook on the kind of leadership that we are witnessing in the market? It seems Mahindra and Mahindra, ICICI Bank, the Bajaj twins have taken leadership. If I were to call out ICICI Bank as well as the Bajaj twins from that list, what do you make of the resilience seen in some of these stocks? Is there a leg for more up move?
The market overall is looking a bit overbought but this momentum is likely to continue given that global markets are working on the basis that the Federal Reserve will go on hold at some point which is what we have been saying anyway for some time. It is kind of a goldilocks scenario which worries me and whilst I can see markets continuing to enjoy this kind of a run, I still think there are quite a few headwinds out there which the market is just ignoring.
What concerns me most is that we have come from thinking about recession to say that recession is going to be okay because interest rates will not rise and possibly fall in 2023. It is a story which we like but I think the market is a little bit ahead of itself at the moment. Whilst it is good to enjoy for the short term, I still think come September some of these problems are being ignored like what is happening in Europe, will resurface.
I have just come back from the US and there is a big labour shortage there. While they do not think that the Fed will go on hold, I do not think that data is going to support it in the short term. Therefore those kindd of views about the Fed not being hawkish in the upcoming September meeting might well be misplaced.
If the market were to go into consolidation or perhaps correction, where would you be tempted to protect capital? Also, where should one take some chips off the table?
It is always worth taking some profits off the table and looking for the next opportunity. We do not know what will be the catalyst for markets to fall as we did not really know what the catalyst was exactly for the market upmove. Initially it was obviously that interest rates might not rise as quickly but the follow through has been quite significant and that worries me because again the Fed really has only tightened a little bit but the US is in technical recession.
My fears are if Russia holds back on gas supplies and Germany which is in recession already, heads deeper into that, it will mean that the Euro would probably go to parity or below. All these things the market is just not looking at, at the moment, If those were to play out, then that can bring the market down.
At some point, that news which you see as good news at the moment – that there is going to be recession and so the market should go higher, will prove to be bad news at some point. But for the time being, the liquidity is there, movement is there but when it is so rotational, at some point, we will come to the end of it because there should be leaders who would be consistently leading the market higher.
Banks and autos have been the leaders but when we get more rotational sectors coming in, one should worry. Why would I want to buy pharma at the moment? But it could be a sector which you are just picking up because it has been out of favour and has not really performed. Those kinds of things get me to the point where I feel that the market is getting too toppish, overbought anyway. So there will be some news which will bring it down.
What is the outlook on some of these capital goods majors?
In capital goods, on the export side, I am surprised that they have been so optimistic, given what is going around in the world. If you listen to some of the commentary from the chip manufacturers, they say demand is slowing going forward. I suspect it is going to be a difficult period for the exporters over the next six months .as we head towards recession globally.
The only thing that will help them is the tailwinds from fall in commodity prices. That will help to get the margins if they do not have to take price cuts. But volumes are lower as well. So the operational gearing will hurt on the way down. In the last quarter, we have seen earnings downgrades more prominently over the last two to three weeks and overall earnings forecast being capped for the year and next. Any kind of big global slowdown will have an impact on the exporters.
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India is set to be included in US financial services firm JP Morgan’s Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM) global index suite, bringing years of negotiations with the Indian government to an end and paving the way for more than $20 billion of stable dollar inflows into the country’s sovereign debt market.‘Big Tech Cos Must Comply with New Data Law in 6 Mths’
Large technology firms, which already comply with global privacy laws such as European GDPR will be given six months to comply with the new Data Act, said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and IT.Import Curbs on Laptops, Tablets likely Called Off
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The iPhone 5C has been getting mucho buzz, as new Apple products tend to do.
A new high-definition video of the new smartphone offers the closest look yet -- of its housing, at any rate, which at least shows what the back of the device will look like.
Insider Sonny Dickson has ponied up the hi-res vid, along with a previous post showing the iPhone 5C housing in green.
The new iPhone 5C will be more modestly priced than its fancier predecessor, and is set to debut Sept. 10 along with the iPhone 5S. The new iPhone will come in at least five colors, BGR reports.
Scroll down for the video showing the iPhone 5C housing in yellow:
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China-based OEM, CIMC Vehicles Group, has reported a 20 per cent increase in revenue year-on-year for the third quarter of 2021.
Net profit for the reported period was approx. €106.6 million.
CIMC Vehicles sold a total of 163,300 units/sets of semi-trailers, truck bodies for specialty vehicles and truck bodies for van-type light trucks worldwide, an increase of 21 per cent year-on-year.
CIMC Vehicles’ total assets amounted to approx. €3.1 million in the first three quarters of 2021, an increase of 16.5 per cent as compared to the end of 2020.
Currently, the three major businesses of CIMC Vehicles are semi-trailers, truck bodies for specialty vehicles, and truck bodies for van-type light trucks. In the first three quarters of 2021, these three businesses in China achieved steady growth in revenue.
Regarding the semi-trailer business, China’s semi-trailer industry enters a period of major changes, with accelerated restructuring in the industry, stricter implementation of the national standards for the second-generation semi-trailers, and improved quality and capacity of logistics transportation of the semi-trailers.
Influenced by the factors such as macroeconomic downturn, rising global commodity prices and declining demand for tractors, the market demand for semi-trailers surged following a drop in Q3 2021. During the first three quarters of 2021, as product replacement and upgrading continued to stimulate demand, the sales and revenue of CIMC Vehicles’ semi-trailer business in China increased significantly by 26.5 per cent and 22.7 per cent year-on-year, respectively.
Regarding the business of truck bodies for specialty vehicles, with the implementation of China’s stage 6 vehicle emission standards, the short-term homogeneous competition in the industry was intensified and the market demand for heavy trucks in China slowed down in Q3 2021. The Group actively developed the market, strengthened R&D on new energy specialty vehicles, and pursued the strategy of joint development with tractor manufacturers. In the first three quarters of 2021, the concrete mixers and urban dump trucks that have been the focus of CIMC Vehicles’ operational efforts moved up another notch in their leading position, and the sales and revenue of truck bodies for specialty vehicles increased by 17.5 per cent and 16.5 per cent year-on-year, respectively.
Regarding the business of truck bodies for van-type light trucks (the TB business), as the growth of the market demand for van-type light trucks in China accelerated, CIMC Vehicles released the ‘TB’ brand in a forward-looking manner to focus on manufacture and sales of refrigerated and dry truck bodies of the TB business.
In terms of refrigerated truck bodies, the Chinese government has made it clear that the planning of cold chain logistics should be sped up to further promote the standardisation of cold chain equipment and the development of new types of cold chain storage facilities, which stimulated the accelerated development of cold chain logistics. In the first three quarters of 2021, the sales of refrigerated trucks in China increased significantly year-on-year, and the revenue and sales of refrigerated truck bodies of CIMC Vehicles continued to increase. In terms of dry van truck bodies, as the Chinese government issued the Notice on Further Strengthening the Production and Registration Management of Light Cargo Vehicles and Mini Passenger Vehicles, the compliance management of light trucks was continuously strengthened. CIMC Vehicles actively developed the business of dry truck bodies for urban logistics distribution and promoted the transformation and upgrading of urban logistics distribution through the Sophisticated Manufacturing System.
In the future, as the Chinese government advocates green, low-carbon transportation modes and strengthens the construction of green infrastructure, CIMC Vehicles will actively develop and promote new-energy, intelligent, digital and lightweight green products to enhance the core competitiveness of its sustainable development and inject vitality into the development of sustainable transportation.
CIMC Vehicles also commented on optimisation in layout of localised production lines and significant recovery in overseas markets.
In addition to the steady expansion of the domestic market, CIMC Vehicles’ overseas markets recovered significantly. Benefiting from the recovery of the global economy, the demand for semi-trailers in overseas markets continued to be released. The Covid-19 pandemic reshaped consumption habits and orders surged in the overseas semi-trailer markets.
CIMC Vehicles further deepened its business philosophy of ‘Intercontinental Operation, Local Manufacturing’, offered convenience to clients by strengthening local manufacturing and local procurement, and actively improved its global supply chain management and global logistics distribution system. Such measures have created long-term development opportunities for CIMC Vehicles in the international economic cycle.
In the first three quarters of 2021, the revenue of CIMC Vehicles’ semi-trailer business in the North America market increased by 8.6 per cent year-on-year. While gradually reducing the impact of globalisation headwinds on the company, CIMC Vehicles’ sales of refrigerated semi-trailers in North America increased significantly by 178.5 per cent year-on-year, benefitting from the optimisation of localised production lines in North America and the rapid surge in market demand.
Moreover, CIMC Vehicles seized the opportunity of the rapid rebound of the Europe semi-trailer market to further enhance the production line and capacity layout of sophisticated manufacturing. In the first three quarters of 2021, the sales and revenue from the Europe semi-trailer market increased significantly by 40.9 per cent and 36.4 per cent year-on-year.
Economic advantages of scale have also been highlighted by CIMC Vehicles’ Sophisticated Manufacturing System.
According to the data, CIMC Vehicles has been exploring the construction of the ‘Sophisticated Manufacturing System’ since 2014, and so far, the Group has globally established 13 ‘Light Tower’ Plants for the production of semi-trailers, six ‘Light Tower’ plants for the production of truck bodies of specialty vehicles and two ‘Light Tower’ plants for the production of truck bodies for refrigerated trucks.
‘Light Tower’ plants of CIMC Vehicles constantly convey the green concept of ‘saving energy and reducing pollution’ through its products from design concept to manufacturing process, and continuously implement intelligent construction and the “hitting peak emissions and achieving carbon neutrality” work strategy of the PRC government, taking lead in the green and sustainable development of the semi-trailer and specialty vehicle industry.
CIMC Vehicles stated that the Group will actively allocate the raised funds to enhance innovation-driven development and achieve digital transformation in the future, preparing a good mechanism for further research and development of intelligent interconnected semi-trailer products and a new generation of new energy refrigerated distribution vehicles. The Group aims to fully realise ‘Sophisticated Manufacturing System’ and ‘management of new infrastructure’ by 2025, opening a new chapter in China’s intelligent manufacturing and high-end manufacturing.
In other news, CIMC Vehicles has emerged stronger than ever from the disruptions of Covid-19 and the monumental shifts in market demand.


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Frontier Airlines is offering flights from as low as $11 one-way through a distinctive two-day sale which ends Wednesday, July 29 at midnight ET.The discounted fares are offered to Discount Den associates and legal for nonstop domestic traveling throughout December 17, 2020. But, finishing dates include September 3-4 and 7; October 8-12 and 16-18 and November 19-December 1.
Now through August 3, Discount Den members—passengers can register to $59.99 annually —may take advantage of Frontier’s Friends Fly Free promotion on select channels and dates with the promo code FLYFREE for traveling October 7, 2020.”To assist customers celebrate the rest of the days of summer or get a jump start on autumn and winter travel programs, we’re providing a sale unlike any other we’ve provided before,” Daniel Shurz, senior vice president of firm for Frontier Airlines, said in a statement. “We also need to reiterate the value of wearing masks ensure everybody’s health and security when flying and offer a reminder it is a necessity for crew and passengers. That’s why we’re calling it our $11 Fares and Friends with Masks Fly Free Sale.”Along with maintaining some chairs available to permit for physical distancing, Frontier is requiring passengers to use face-coverings and experience temperature checks before boarding.Contact your trip adviser or see FlyFrontier.com to filter airport deals.


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More startups in Egypt are increasingly raising funds this year compared to most African countries. Added to the list is Cairo-based ecommerce enablement platform ExpandCart which has raised $2.5 million in a Series A round.
“We believe that technology can empower commerce and with that vision in mind, we have built solutions to help merchants expand their sales online and offline. This new round of funding will help us work on our ambitious roadmap of new innovative eCommerce solutions that we will be rolling out to supercharge ecommerce growth in the Middle East,” Amr Shawqy, the co-founder and CEO of ExpandCart said in a statement.
Here Is What You Need To Know
- This round was led by Egyptian VC Sawari Ventures with the Agility Ventures (the corporate VC arm of logistics firm Agility), and Graphene Ventures. Two angel investors also took part in the round.
- With this investment, ExpandCart will double down on digital commerce solutions that target online and offline retailers and reduce the gap between suppliers and merchants in the Middle East.
- Last year, the startup raised $150k in funding after being selected into the Hong Kong-based Betatron accelerator.
Why The Investors Invested
“Over the past years, the ExpandCart team was able to build an amazing platform supporting thousands of merchants from all over the Middle East,” Ahmed Alfi, the Chairman of Sawari Ventures, said. “Their new ecommerce solutions roadmap proves that they truly understand the future of eCommerce, and we are excited to be part of their journey.”
“Since our previous funding round in 2019 with ExpandCart, we have been working with them as a strategic partner in the region, their amazing highly-integrated product along with their impressive growth proves they are the only platform positioned to lead the Middle Eastern market. This is why we were eager to join this round with a follow-on funding,” Fahad Al Shatti, the Vice President of Corporate Venture Capital at Agility, said.
A Look At What The Startup Does
- Founded in 2013 by Amr Shawqy and Sameh Nabil, ExpandCart enables individuals and businesses to build online stores in Arabic and/or English using its platform. The startup also offers an integrated point-of-sale system for retailers to make it easy for them to manage their omnichannel presence. ExpandCart’s solutions come with branded mobile apps for merchants.
- It claims to be the leading ecommerce (enablement) platform in the region with over 20,000 merchants as its users (it is not clear if these merchants are active or have used ExpandCart at a certain point) in over 40 countries.
- The startup also has multiple regional competitors including startups like Salla, Zid, and Ecomz that have previously raised millions of dollars in venture capital.
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“Business is always a struggle. There are always obstacles and competitors. There is never an open road, except the wide road that leads to failure. Every great success has always been achieved by fight, every winner has scars. The men who succeed are the efficient few –they are the few who have the ambition and will-power to develop themselves. So choose to be among the few today.”– Chris Kirubi, Centum Investment, Kenya


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The people waging a war on plastic bags in Canada and elsewhere didn't count on a new study that links reusable bags with an increase in food poisoning
In its legal application, the Ontario Convenience Stores Association alleges the draft bylaw falls outside the city's jurisdiction and was approved without proper public consultation
The draft bylaw still technically calls for a ban to be enacted on Jan. 1, 2013, but retailers may be given an 'educational' period from Jan. 1 to June 30 to be reminded they are contravening the bylaw
With more than half of council voting to reopen the matter — but not the two-thirds support required — Mayor Rob Ford’s allies showed renewed vigour that the battle to overturn the ban is not over
“If I want to donate to charity, I should do it myself and get the tax break,” one customer says. Many stores continue to charge for bags despite Toronto scrapping its bag fee bylaw
Toronto scrapped its 5¢ plastic bag fee effective July 1, but many large retailers in Toronto are continuing to charge for plastic bags
At a Wednesday city council meeting, Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion devised a plan to seek public opinion on a potential bag ban
WEEKEND ROUNDUP What’s John Manley up to these days? Desperate times call for the same old failed solutions. In the National Post, Rex Murphy argues that being accused of still harbouring “a messiah complex” would be an acceptable price for the Liberals to pay if Justin Trudeau throws his hat...
Thirty-nine per cent think is a bad idea, according to the poll, which sampled 1,019 Canadian adults
Re: Graduation Truth: ‘You Are Not Special,’ Joe O’Connor, June 12. I am a Boomer in the latter stages of my working life, and quite honestly, I am put to shame by the work ethic, versatility, skill and industriousness of my young colleagues and employees. These are not coddled kids. You know...


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A report from the World Bank suggests that entrepreneurship can solve the job crisis in South Africa but many entrepreneurs battle for funding.
Below is a look at the different funding options that entrepreneurs can use to fund their small business.
1. Government funding
The South African government will offer funding to entrepreneurs for their business if the enterprise can impact the economy.
Government offers 5 types of grants:
- Grants -
- Cost-sharing grants -
- Tax incentives
- Equity funding
An entrepreneur will need to meet the following criteria to be eligible for government funding: a registered company, B-BBEE certification, tax clearance, company profile and a business plan
The business funds itself. Bootstrapping, also known as financial bootstrapping, is when an entrepreneur starts a company with little capital, relying on their own funds rather than outside investments to build the business. As the business grows, they use the profits for further growth.
Crowdfunding is the use of small amounts of capital from a large number of individuals to finance a new business venture.
In the past two years, crowdfunding has grown in popularity, largely because of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
In South Africa, there are a variety of crowdfunding platforms that entrepreneurs can look to get funding for their businesses, including Uprise Africa and Thundafund.
In 2018, Uprise Africa announced the company’s first equity crowdfunding investment closed after raising a total of R 3 889 000 in just 60 days for Drifter Brewing Company.
The three primary types of crowdfunding are:
- Debt-based crowdfunding
- Equity-based crowdfunding
- Rewards-based crowdfunding
4. Venture Capital
An entrepreneur who is just starting business can go down the venture capital route when seeking funding.
Venture capital is offered to early-stage enterprises for companies that show potential for growth. However, in exchange for funding, the venture capital firm may require certain decision-making powers or an ownership stake in the business.
According to a report in Business Report, the South African venture capital market continued to grow during the Covid-19 pandemic, with 74 Fund managers investing R1.39 billion into122 entities through 167 investment rounds in 2020.
5. Angel investor
An angel investor is a high net-worth individual (HNWI) who offers an entrepreneur’s start-up funding in exchange for a piece of the business. Angel investors are more likely to invest in firms that are recommended by trusted individuals. Therefore, it is important that an entrepreneur network’s in the business community to get a referral.
6. Traditional financing
Entrepreneurs can look to the traditional and more common ways of getting funding for a business: a business loan from a bank.
In South Africa, entrepreneurs can apply online to qualify for a business loan, and one of the requirements for the business loan can include that the business has been successfully trading for 12 months.


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Help us learn more about you and your job. Take our short audience survey now for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card.
When five-year-old startup Eight Sleep released a new product in February, a $1,995 smart mattress that offers dynamic temperature adjustment, the company used the launch to kick off a “pretty intense testing phase” of new marketing channels, according to senior vice president of growth Ori Klein.
Up until February, Eight Sleep spent about 60-70% of its marketing budget on Facebook and Instagram, according to Klein. “We’d been seeing great returns there — but we were very reliant on Facebook,” Klein said.
Over the course of the next few months, Eight Sleep tested running paid ads on Pinterest, Twitter, traditional radio and podcasts, and last month started running its first TV ads. Now, Klein estimates that Eight Sleep spends about 30-40% of its marketing budget on Facebook and Instagram. And in particular, he said that Eight Sleep has found success with audio and Twitter in driving a better return-on-advertising spend.
For many of today’s direct-to-consumer brands, it’s not a question of if they should diversify more of their ad spend away from Facebook, but when, as the cost of advertising on Facebook continues to rise. The greater the percentage of a brand’s budget that is dedicated to Facebook, the more increases in ad costs hurt. But, brands also have to be careful to not test too many new channels at once, particularly without a solid attribution system in place, or risk of not being able to identify which channel was ultimately the most effective in driving sales and brand awareness.
Klein said that Eight Sleep decided that the launch of its new mattress, called the Pod, would be a good opportunity to test out new marketing channels for a couple of reasons. One, is that it cost about double the price of its previous mattress, so the company figured that it would take customers longer to ultimately pull the trigger on purchasing. Eight Sleep wanted to get a better sense of which top-of-the-funnel platforms — the ones that people go to when they first start researching a product to buy — were most effective for them.
Second, Klein said that it felt that the mattress was different enough anything else on the market that it warranted investing advertising platforms where they could explain the value proposition more. While there are other beds on the market that have temperature adjustment, Eight Sleep said that the Pod uses artificial intelligence to do that automatically. Klein said that, in particular, the company thought that traditional radio and podcast ads lent themselves well to explaining what made the product different.
“It took us a bit of time to find the right placement,” Klein said. “But after a couple months we’ve been seeing very strong returns in those channels, and CPMs are quite attractive on some of those channels,” though he did not give specifics.
“Often the reason a podcast works is not because people like the message so much, but because they like and trust the host: ‘If she likes it then I might,'” Richie Siegel, the founder of retail consulting firm Loose Threads said in an email. But, he said “the opposite can also happen where a podcast ad goes on for a full minute and is very obtuse and people end up skipping it.”
Klein said that Eight Sleep has found its ads perform well on wellness-related podcasts in particular. Eight Sleep relies on a mix of directing listeners to visit custom URLs, promo codes, and post-purchase surveys to try to figure out which customers end up purchasing after listing to an audio ad. While some DTC brands are eschewing traditional radio in favor of podcasts, Klein said that the company wants to continue to invest in both.
“With podcasts you are able to get really targeted about the type of audience and type of host and really work closely with the host to provide the best representation of the product,” Klein said. “With radio, it’s obviously less targeted, it’s harder to really nail down the audience piece, but typically the CPMs make up for it in a big way.”
Klein said that Eight Sleep has also found some success in paying to promote Tweets from customers about the product after the company saw that some of the first users who received the Pod first started organically tweeting about it. Eight Sleep has also experimented with running some paid Twitter product ads. Klein said that on Twitter, some of its ad costs have run less than 10 cents per click, whereas on Facebook they have run up to about a dollar per click.
“Twitter has a lot of promise for a very top-of-the-funnel channel,” Klein said.
Eight Sleep is trying to build on the promise it has seen through Twitter in other ways, by trying to encourage other customers to leave reviews of the product or post about it on social media. Its app, which tracks how “good” of a night of sleep customers get, prompts users to post about Eight Sleep on social media when they get a good night of sleep. But, the company can only do so much to encourage customers to organically post about the product, and to track how many conversions it can drive through word-of-mouth.
“Word-of-mouth is a great mechanism for driving brand awareness, but is notorious for being almost impossible to measure effectively,” Marco Marandiz, a DTC brand consultant, said in an email. “Driving sales through word-of-mouth is mostly a bet on build an amazing brand customer experience.”
Correction: A previous version of this article’s headline read “Mattress brand Eight Sleep used a new product launch to cut its ad spend on Facebook in half.” It’s been updated to reflect that the percentage of its marketing budget that goes to Facebook was cut in half.


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XM Satellite Radio
is still tuned in to growth.
The Washington, D.C.-based pay radio broadcaster says it added 640,000 net new subscribers in the second quarter ended Thursday. The new-user total represents a blowout growth number exceeding nearly all analysts' expectations.
Analysts were looking for XM to have signed up 545,000 new users during the period, roughly matching the company's strong first-quarter numbers.
"This was the best second quarter in the history of XM. The momentum behind XM's subscriber growth is undeniable," says CEO Hugh Panero in a press release Friday.
XM has doubled its subscriber base in one year and now has 4.4 million users. The company did not give any new forecast for its year-end total.
Shares of XM jumped 62 cents, or 2%, to $34.28 in late-morning trading.
Observers note that in the past, XM's strong subscriber growth numbers usually triggered a little selling on the day of the announcement, in large part because the stock had risen in anticipation of the news. XM shares have jumped 21% in the past two months.
In May, XM surpassed the 4-million-subscriber mark and stuck with its earlier projection of having more than 5.5 million users by year-end.
At last count, rival
had 1.5 million users and expected to hit the 2.7-million-subscriber mark by the end of this year.


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The worth of Bitcoin plunged once more this morning, as coronavirus fears unfold throughout the US. Complete market capitalization for all cryptocurrencies has been slashed by greater than 1 / 4—and continues to tumble.
However that didn’t cease main US crypto change Coinbase from asserting a brand new function on its platform: the long-awaited “Bitcoin transaction batching.”
The corporate stated the function will decrease community charges for customers and unlock area on the Bitcoin blockchain. “This permits the community to extend transaction throughput, and helps to extend scalability,” the corporate stated in a weblog.
Bitcoin transaction batching works by packaging transactions into one block, as a substitute of a single transaction taking over a block all to itself. “A single transaction that fulfills a number of person ship requests occupies much less area in every block than every being processed individually,” the corporate stated. “Put one other means: the entire is lower than the sum of the elements in the case of Bitcoin transactions,” Coinbase added.
Within the weblog submit, Coinbase referenced how transaction charges at one level have been round $30, in all probability a nod to when charges have been excessive in 2017. Nonetheless, it additionally acknowledged in the identical submit that related charges are right this moment round 30 cents. So is all of it too little too late?
Some Bitcoiners thought so, and expressed their criticism of Coinbase for ready so lengthy to launch the function:
Final 12 months, and the 12 months earlier than that, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said that batching was quickly coming to the service after customers had complained about charges. In the meantime, opponents resembling San Francisco-based change Kraken and and pockets suppliers like Samourai launched batching options years in the past.
Not everybody, although, is a fan of batching transactions, particularly these involved with the potential downsides with regard to privateness.
Regardless of the announcement, some folks have pointed on the market is likely to be some privateness downsides to batching transactions. In a weblog submit in 2017, Bitcoin.org contributor David A Harding famous that batched transactions on Kraken enable others on blockchain explorers to see the addresses of everybody who was paid out as a part of a batch.
“You don’t know who these recipients are, however you do know they obtained bitcoins from Kraken the identical as you,” Harding wrote.


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Driver hit with parking fine after car breakdown meant four hour wait
- Credit: Shirley Barber/Archant
A stranded 76-year-old forced to wait four hours for her car to be fixed was left aghast after finding she had been smacked with a parking charge for the stop.
Shirley Barber had been parked in Riverside Retail Park for an hour and a half on November 16 for shopping and lunch before she realised her Mercedes C Class would not start.
She subsequently called the RAC who arrived just before 8pm and proceeded to leave a couple of minutes after the car's flat battery was replaced.
But the part-time Hopkins Homes worker was dumfounded to receive a parking charge reminder on December 18.
The actual parking charge notice for £70 arrived in the post three days later from car park owner Highview Parking.
The Stalham woman was later told by Direct Collection Bailiffs in early February that the parking charge had increased to £140.
The letter added Mrs Barber's £70 parking charge reduced to £42 if paid within 14 days.
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There is a two hour limit for parking at the Riverside Retail Park.
Mrs Barber had contacted Citizens Advice as part of her appeal but was met with difficulties accessing a verification code as part of the process.
She said: "I was desperate to get this sorted out so I can have some peace. I couldn't get anywhere on the phone with my appeal.
"It was bad enough paying for the car breakdown. These costs for parking seem completely unfair.
"As soon as the RAC got me going with the new battery I left the car park."
Having been contacted by the Evening News, Highview Parking has since decided to reverse its decision.
A spokesman for the London-based company said: "Having reviewed the incident and given the circumstances regarding the Mrs Barber’s flat battery we have agreed to cancel the parking charge notice."
Direct Collection Bailiffs has been contacted for comment.
The Evening News has launched a 'We'll Sort It' campaign which aims to fix problems for folk across the city.
Got a problem you need sorting? Contact email@example.com


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Honda Leases FCX Fuel Cell Car to First Private Consumers
Honda Motor Corp. (Japan) reported that its next-generation, environmentally friendly, FCX fuel cell car has been leased to a family in Los Angeles, marking the first time regular consumers have been able to regularly use the new type of vehicle. The hydrogen-powered car, which seats four, is being leased to the Spallino family in California. The cost of the two-year lease is $500 per month.
Jon Spallino was a customer of Honda in the past, and he was selected to use the vehicle because of his interest in environmental problems. He said the car would be used for traveling to work and in family outings. Spallino will fill up on hydrogen fuel at a Honda research facility near his home. The cost to fully refuel the car has been set low, at $7.50. The 3.5 kg of fuel allows the car to run for about 300 km.


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The right tools in the right hands can make all the difference when it comes to home-performance services. NCI president Rob Falke and other contractors provide a list of the tools required to be successful in home-performance work.
Technicians can earn up to two hours of NATE credit
October 6, 2016
E Instruments, a leading manufacturer of HVAC combustion analyzers, IAQ monitors, gas leak detectors, and other products, announced that it is now offering North American Technician Excellence (NATE)-certified training courses for combustion analyzers.
The past several years have been record-setting for the company
September 30, 2016
Inc. magazine ranked TruTech Tools No. 3,962 on its 35th annual Inc. 5000, a ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. The list provides a look at the most successful companies within the American economy’s most dynamic segment — its independent small businesses.
Awards ceremony and Product of the Year unveiling set for Jan. 31 in Las Vegas
September 15, 2016
International Exposition Co. today announced the winners of the 2017 AHR Expo (International Air-Conditioning, Heating, Refrigerating Exposition) Innovation Awards. The annual awards competition honors the most inventive and original products, systems, and technologies showcased at each year’s AHR Expo.


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Northeast Ohio entrepreneurs who completed the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program at Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C®) outperformed the broader economy while exceeding national averages in revenue growth and job creation.
Nearly two of three participants in the 10,000 Small Businesses program at Tri-C reported increased revenue at their companies in the first six months after graduation, and more than 40 percent hired more employees.
By comparison, less than half of small-business owners nationally saw revenue growth while only 22 percent added jobs, according to a survey by the National Small Businesses Association.
“The 10,000 Small Businesses program at Cuyahoga Community College has delivered on its goal to strengthen local companies and grow the regional economy,” said Alex Johnson, president of Tri-C. “With every graduate and success story, we build toward a better tomorrow in Northeast Ohio.”
The results at Tri-C mirror those detailed in a study released today by Babson College. The report “Stimulating Small Business Growth: Progress Report on Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses” details the progress of the thousands of entrepreneurs who have completed the program.
“The results confirm that small businesses continue to play a central role in spurring economic growth and job creation in their communities and nationwide, and we are so pleased to see how this program has contributed to their success,” said Dina Habib Powell, president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation and head of the firm’s Impact Inventing business.
10,000 Small Businesses is a $500-million initiative to unlock the growth and job creation potential of small businesses across the United States by providing better access to business education, financial capital and business support services.
The program debuted at Cuyahoga Community College in May 2012. The alumni list recently surpassed 300 business owners and entrepreneurs representing a wide variety of industries.
The roll call of graduates includes Randy Golenberg, owner of Spark Your Brand, a product marketing and merchandising company based in Chagrin Falls. He said the time spent in 10,000 Small Businesses created a foundation to build his business.
“It allowed me to work ‘on’ the business instead of ‘in’ the business,” Golenberg said. “You look at things in a different way, and that’s invaluable.”
To be accepted into the program, participants must demonstrate a commitment to growing their businesses and creating jobs within their community. Each spends 12 weeks at Tri-C studying a business and management curriculum designed by Babson College, a top-ranked school for entrepreneurial education and the academic partner of 10,000 Small Businesses.
Tri-C faculty customize the curriculum, which covers topics such as accounting, human resources, negotiation and marketing. The program also includes one-on-one business advising, accounting workshops and advice from Goldman Sachs professionals.
The application deadline for the next session of 10,000 Small Businesses is Oct. 22. Another cohort will begin in early 2016.
Visit www.tri-c.edu/10ksb or call 216-987-3220 for more information.


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Canada’s Supreme Court upheld a British Columbia court ruling today that ordered Google to de-list entire domains and websites from its global search index.
The 7-2 landmark ruling stems from case Google v. Equustek, which began when BC-based technology company Equustek Solutions accused distributor Datalink Technology Gateways of relabeling one of its products and selling it as their own online. Further, Equustek also claimed Datalink acquired trade secrets in order to create a similar competing product. Datalink first denied the accusations, then fled the province, continuing business operations, mostly outside of Canada. Datalink representatives never appeared in court, and Equustek won default judgment.


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The Commercial Bank of Ceylon has been ranked the ‘Strongest Bank Brand’ in Sri Lanka for the third consecutive year in the 2022 report on the country’s most valuable and strongest brands by Brand Finance, the world’s leading independent brand valuation consultancy, a spokesman said.
The Commercial Bank brand also moved up the value ranking to be the third most valuable brand in Sri Lanka across all sectors covered by the latest edition of the ‘Brand Finance Sri Lanka 100’ released in April 2022, he said.
Brand Finance assigned the Commercial Bank brand a value of Rs 46.7 billion, an increase of Rs 3 billion or 7% over its valuation for 2021, recognising that the value of the Commercial Bank brand grew at a faster pace than the overall brand value of the banking sector, which was up by 3%.
In terms of brand strength, Brand Finance gave Commercial Bank a Brand Strength Index (BSI) scoreof 86.7 and a AAA brand rating, the highest rating assigned to the top brands this year. In its summary of the results, Brand Finance noted that the stronger the brand, the higher the potential value it can generate in the future, he added
Referring to Commercial Bank, the consultancy commented that the bank’s attempt to differentiate its product offering through a digitally-driven banking environment such as the Q+ Payment App, (which was the first QR code-based payment app under LANKAQR) coupled with other digital transformation strategies, and its strong network of branches are a big contributor to its strength.
Among the other digital and social media banking services offered by Commercial Bank are ComBank Digital, ComBank ePassbook, the Flash Digital Bank Account, ComBank eSlips, ComBank RemitPlus, ComBank WhatsApp Banking and Bank with ComBank on Viber, he said.
“The banking sector continues to play a pivotal role in maintaining a healthy financial system in the country,” Brand Finance said.“This year sees a growth in value for banking brands despite the turbulent economy as they continue to make efforts in meeting the fast-growing consumer demands and efficient cost management systems. Overall brand value of the sector grew by 3%, accounting for 44% of the Sri Lanka 100 total brand value.”
Commercial Bank Managing Director/Group CEO S. Renganathan said: “These are extremely challenging time for businesses, and brands that can grow in these circumstances are those that visibly live up to their promise in tangible and customer-responsive ways. This has always been a strength at Commercial Bank. We believe that every employee must live our brand values.”


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By KELVIN CHAN, AP Business Author
LONDON (AP) — On the internet organizations would have to ramp up efforts to retain hazardous written content off their platforms and just take other measures to shield buyers less than regulations that European Union lawmakers are established to vote on Thursday.
The 27-country bloc has received a track record as a trendsetter in the rising worldwide press to rein in massive tech businesses as they face withering criticism in excess of misinformation, detest speech and other destructive material on their platforms.
Here is a look at the proposed EU principles, regarded as the Digital Providers Act, and why they would make an influence:
WHAT IS THE Electronic Providers ACT?
Political Cartoons on Planet Leaders
The legislation is component of a sweeping overhaul of the European Union’s digital procedures aimed at guaranteeing on the internet firms, such as tech giants like Google and Fb parent Meta, secure end users on their platforms and deal with rivals relatively. It can be an update of the EU’s two-10 years-aged e-commerce directive.
“The Digital Solutions Act could now become the new gold common for electronic regulation, not just in Europe but all over the globe,” the lead EU lawmaker on the bill, Christel Schaldemose, stated throughout a debate Wednesday. “Big tech nations like the U.S. or China are watching closely to see what we’re now heading to agree.”
The proposals are just one-50 % of flagship digital rules drafted by the bloc. EU lawmakers are also doing the job on a independent proposal, the Digital Marketplaces Act, which is aimed at reining in the electrical power of the major on the net “gatekeepers.” Both equally continue to face further more negotiations with EU bodies ahead of having result.
The Digital Products and services Act consists of a raft of steps aimed at much better defending internet consumers and their “fundamental legal rights online.” Tech corporations will be held much more responsible for written content on their platforms, with requirements to beef up flagging and elimination of unlawful material like hate speech or dodgy goods and products and services offered on the net like counterfeit sneakers or unsafe toys.
But lawmakers have been battling about the specifics of this sort of takedowns, including regardless of whether court docket orders would be required.
On the web platforms will have to be a lot more clear about their algorithms that propose the next video clip to view, merchandise to invest in or news item at the major of people’s social media feeds. So-identified as recommender units have been criticized for major men and women to more more and more severe or polarizing content.
Some amendments to the laws proposed giving people the possibility of turning suggestions off or applying third-get together units.
There are also steps to ban platforms from making use of “dark patterns” — misleading techniques to nudge people into accomplishing matters they did not intend to — as nicely as requiring porn internet sites to sign-up the identities of customers uploading materials.
ARE THERE ANY CONTROVERSIAL Points?
One of the legislation’s most important battles is more than surveillance-dependent marketing, also known as qualified or behavioral advertising and marketing. This kind of adverts would be banned for youngsters, but digital and purchaser rights teams say the proposals never go much sufficient and have known as for prohibiting them outright. That notion has confronted intense resistance from the electronic advertisement market dominated by Google and Meta.
Surveillance ads keep track of on line conduct, this sort of as the sites visited or products bought on line by a user, to serve them far more digital ads dependent on those passions.
Groups these as Amnesty International say advertisement monitoring undermines the legal rights that the laws is intended to safeguard, since it consists of a massive invasion of privacy and indiscriminate information harvesting as portion of a process that manipulates buyers and encourages advertisement fraud.
WHAT Occurs TO OFFENDERS?
The EU’s solitary industry commissioner, Thierry Breton, took to Twitter on Wednesday to portray the proposed policies as the begin of a new era for tricky on the net enforcement.
“It’s time to set some purchase in the electronic ‘Wild West,'” he reported. “A new sheriff is in town — and it goes by the name #DSA,” he explained, publishing a mashup of movie clips from a Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western movie.
Underneath the Electronic Products and services Act, violations could be punished with hefty fines of up to 6% of a company’s yearly revenue. Some amendments have pushed for boosting that sum.
Adhere to Kelvin Chan on Twitter.
See all of AP’s tech protection at https://apnews.com/hub/technological innovation.
Copyright 2022 The Involved Press. All legal rights reserved. This product may possibly not be posted, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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One Simple Price
San Antonio, Texas (PRWEB) July 25, 2013
Business has been really good for Gunn Buick GMC and it's about to get a whole lot better. Gunn Automotive Group in San Antonio, Texas has announced that Gunn Buick GMC is getting brand new, state of the art digs. The new showroom and sophisticated service department will still be located in San Antonio and only a short distance from its current location. That's good news for those who live in the city and the surrounding areas of Corpus Christi and Austin.
The company put down roots in River City decades ago and has become part of the surrounding landscape. Residents would have been disappointed if the showroom had moved anywhere else. The close-knit community, and loyal customers have made the company the success it is today. The Automotive Group has been a part of San Antonio for over fifty years, and nothing short of a disaster could tear them away from the city they love.
The new facility will be located just 5 miles North of the existing showroom on IH35 exit 174a . Construction is almost complete, and the building has been scheduled for an August 5th open. Needless to say, the sense of excitement is palpable for everyone involved, and there is no sense of it diminishing anytime soon. The future looks exceedingly bright for anyone looking for a new or used Buick GMC vehicle, only this time they'll be doing business in a new, and modern space.
Gunn Automotive was founded by Curtis C. Gunn with a single Oldsmobile dealership in 1955. For the next five decades, the dealership has grown to include the most popular car models sold in the United States. Gunn is considered one of the Top 100 automotive dealer groups in the country, and is considered one of the fastest growing companies in San Antonio. Distinguished as one of the city's largest privately-held companies, an indelible mark has been made on the community that over time, has only strengthened and matured.
In 1995, the company evolved to its current No Hassle, No Haggle, One Simple Price business model. It has enjoyed increased sales and customer satisfaction because of the way it continues to do business. That core principle ultimately changed the San Antonio car market. As a result, Gunn's market share has doubled. The company has grown, and is taking an opportunity to expand. All of this is possible because of loyal customers that Gunn is proud to do business with. This is a testament to the relationships formed with customers that go beyond the buying and selling of a vehicle. It ultimately proves that a successful business is possible when you treat your customers the way you want to be treated. For Gunn, the Golden Rule is key to everything they do. They have a strong following of customers because of it.
As the dealership moves to a brand new facility and showroom on August 5th, there is no doubt that Gunn Buick GMC will have many friends and customers following close behind them.


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Earlier today, Epic Games announced an update for PC, Mac, and Android versions of Fortnite, but the iOS edition was conspicuously absent. The company explained that the iOS patch would be available at a later time because the team was still working on it. Fortunately, the wait time was very short at only a few hours.
This afternoon, Epic announced the PC, Mac, and Android updates on its Twitter account, where it explained that users wouldn’t experience any downtime but that they may have to restart the game for the update to install.
Assuming you’re on one of these platforms and the game hasn’t updated, you should restart it to get the latest update. All three updates bring performance improvements, and a similar update for iOS was released about three hours after the initial batch.
On its Fortnite Twitter account, Epic said the iOS update “addresses many performance issues,” a sentiment it also shared on the FortniteBR subreddit where the company said, “We’ve just released an update for iOS that contains many performance improvements.”
Anyone who plays Fortnite on the iPhone and/or iPad should install the update to (hopefully) fix the various performance issues iOS players have been complaining about. Epic doesn’t go into detail about specific issues that were fixed, promising only that “many” problems have been addressed.


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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — NATSO is partnering with a major electric vehicle (EV) charging network to support the development of charging stations at thousands of travel centers and truckstops across the United States.
NATSO, the national association for travel centers and truckstops, has formed The National Highway Charging Collaborative with ChargePoint, which is said to be the largest EV charging network in the country. The two have signed a memorandum of understanding in which they agreed to target the following goals by 2030:
- Install EV charging stations at 4,000 travel centers and fueling sites by tapping $1 billion in capital.
- Provide charging stations at fueling locations across the United States with a focus on connecting rural populations.
- Expand availability of charging infrastructure and connect the existing Federal Highway Administration-designated FAST Act corridors.
- Work together on policy to support each of these objectives.
As part of the collaboration, NATSO and ChargePoint will identify public and private funding opportunities to support the EV charging expansion. This includes funds earmarked for states from Volkswagen’s settlement with the United States government over its diesel emissions cheating scandal. (Volkswagen, through its subsidiary Electrify America, has been building its own public EV charging network in partnership with convenience stores and other retailers and property owners.)
“NATSO for the last 20 years has successfully advocated for incentives to enable our members to profitably incorporate renewable fuels into their fuel supply. We look forward to building on these successes so that the travel center industry can continue to play a leading role in bringing alternative fuels to its customers,” said Lisa Mullings, NATSO president and CEO. NATSO has worked with the Federal Highway Administration since 2016 to increase the availability of alternative fuels through its Alternative Fuels Corridor Program.
“ChargePoint is proud to partner with NATSO to significantly expand access to charging along America’s highways while also ensuring that the implementation of charging infrastructure in rural areas accelerates in the years to come,” said Pasquale Romano, president and CEO of ChargePoint, Campbell, Calif. ChargePoint’s network has more than 108,100 charging points around the world and has reportedly supplied more than 73 million charges. In the past few years, ChargePoint has installed stations at 7-Eleven among other c-store retailers, and has attracted funding from Chevron.
Travel center and truckstop operators interested in learning more about The National Highway Charging Collaborative can click here.
A National Network
The NATSO-ChargePoint partnership was announced the same week that a new bill was introduced to form a national fast-charging network. The Electric Vehicle Freedom Act, sponsored by Rep. Andy Levin (D) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D), would create the nationwide network of fast charging stations within five years, with an aim of using technology that could ensuring a full charge in the same time it takes to fill up a gasoline or diesel tank. The stations would be ADA-compliant and compatible with all charging standards, and offer guaranteed secure, convenient and equal-access payment methods. The bill directs the U.S. Secretaries of Transportation and Energy to develop a plan to create the network, submit it to Congress and create the network within five years.
In an interview with The Hill, Levin declined to provide an estimate of costs or how they would be paid for—by taxpayers or the site hosts—other than to say, “It'll cost a lot of money to put all these chargers in place." Levin also would not specify how many chargers the network would include or where they would go, but he told The Hill it would be an "extensive" system across both interstates and the national highway system "such that it's a comprehensive system so that people can get everywhere."


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Its economy lie-flat seating concept is making waves, and now Air New Zealand is officially the airline of the year, at least according to Australia-based aviation safety and product rating agency AirlineRatings.com.
AirlineRatings.com cites AirNZ’s intriguing SkyNest economy beds – set to launch in 2024 – as one of the key factors determining its number one spot.
“The airline is always innovating and not content to take off-the-shelf products and seats but go one better,” Geoffrey Thomas, AirlineRatings.com’s editor-in-chief, told CNN Travel, crediting Air New Zealand’s dedicated design studio and its output. “It’s this focus on the economy travelers’ wellbeing and comfort that impressed the judges.”
AirlineRatings.com also praised Air New Zealand’s operational safety, environmental leadership and staff motivation.
After a couple of years of reduced air travel in the wake of the pandemic, travelers returned to the air in 2022 to significant airline chaos – canceled flights, lost luggage and overstretched staff.
The result, said Thomas, was an “interesting” year all in all, as “most airlines suffered declines in passenger approvals as the industry struggled to get into the air.”
The jury’s still out on whether this year will see a more stable air travel landscape. And interestingly, while Air New Zealand came out on top for 2023, Thomas said the results were close among the top five.


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The military has been stepping up their game recently to make uniforms more new-mom-friendly.
Just last month, the Air Force announced that it has approved breastfeeding shirts as part of their uniform. The tops, which are manufactured by Miss Military Mom, come in sand or tan—colors authorized to be worn underneath two current Air Force uniforms, Babble reports. And back in April, the Army officially did the same, allowing for the breastfeeding tops to be worn underneath their uniforms as well.
Available in long-sleeve and short-sleeve styles, the shirts all feature a flap, or panel, that can be lifted so a nursing or pumping mom doesn't have to completely push up her shirt to comfortably express milk. For new moms in the Air Force and Army, the tops would be tucked into their utility uniforms.
As Babble notes, nursing moms will have to buy the shirts themselves, but military members get a yearly clothing stipend anyway to help pay for their uniforms. There's no word yet on whether military clothing stores will sell the item.
The woman behind Miss Military Mom is Kenisha Health, who got the idea to design the shirts when she returned to work as an active duty Airman after giving birth in 2014. She struggled to get through multiple layers of her daily uniform to breastfeed or pump, so she decided to create a uniform option that was more convenient for new moms like her, according to her bio on MissMilitaryMom.com.
And it's other moms in the military who have been instrumental in getting the tops approved by the different branches. As Red Tricycle reported in May, mom of two Major Kelly Bell "made it her personal mission" to get the shirts authorized by the U.S. Army. And Tech. Sgt. Natalia Wood, 20th Maintenance Group unit deployment manager and mom of three who is currently pregnant with her fourth child, played an important role in getting the breastfeeding tops to become an option for new moms in the Air Force, Military.com reports. "I'm trying to normalize breastfeeding, not for me, but for all future generations. I was thinking more about everyone behind me. I just feel like we are the leader in securing our skies, but when it comes to this, we're lagging behind," she said in a service release. "I'm just trying to bring us up to speed, where we do support women who are breastfeeding, and we do provide spaces [for nursing and pumping]."


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Original article by Federico Guerrini
Starting next Tuesday, thousands of attendees will flock to Sofia, Bulgaria, to take part in the Webit.Festival, the largest of a number of conferences that the Webit Foundation, chaired by Bulgarian serial entrepreneur and investor Plamen Russev, is organizing across Europe and Asia.
After being held at many venues, the festival is relocating to the organizer’s home country, where it all started in 2008. The move is perfectly in line with the new ethos and dynamism of the booming capital tech scene, dubbed recently by StartupDorf’s blogger Svetla Miteva as “the hidden startup champion of Europe.”
Companies like Telerik, Chaos Group (the maker of the V-Ray software), and more recently, Tickey, have boosted the reputation of Bulgarian engineers and developers around the world. Sofia was even listed among the 10 top cities to launch a startup in an infographic curated by the The Brighton School of Business and Management and published by Seedstars World.
Bulgaria’s low 10% income tax rate makes it particularly attractive for business owners, although they do still have to contend with widespread corruption. But it’s a vibrant ecosystem, albeit not a very well-known one. I caught up with Russev to learn a bit more about Bulgaria and Central Europe in general. Below’s the interview.
Read the whole article on Forbes.


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EUR/USD (a 4-hour chart)
The U.S. dollar fell to a two-month low level against the Japanese yen as evidence that Japanese investors continued to sell foreign bonds and stocks. That news was more important to the market than the more positive-than-expected data on U.S. retail sales and the number of applications for unemployment benefits.
USD/JPY was trading at 94.77 against 95.61 in late North American session on Wednesday, falling below 95 for the first time since early April. The dollar briefly committed below 94 yen on Thursday. Stronger U.S. economic data contributed to a possible slowdown in the monthly asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, which have a negative impact on the dollar. The policy of the central bank determined the fluctuations of the market in recent years, as investors tried to predict the likely timing change in Fed policy. But the reaction of the dollar to a possible decline in asset purchases was not as positive as investors hoped.
U.S. retail sales in May grew at the fastest pace in three months, jumping 0.6% adjusted for seasonal variations. The reason for this growth was the sale of cars that offset the decline in sales of electronics and clothing as well as a decrease in income of restaurants, among others.